1. Field of the Invention
In general, the present invention relates to a manipulative tool to assist in education and training for speech and phonology. More specifically, the invention relates to a manipulative tool used to demonstrate proper positioning and configuration of articulators and other oral structures to improve a client's understanding of phonological rules in general, and to improve his cognitive awareness of the proper positioning and configuration of articulators and other oral structures. Such understanding and awareness will help to improve the client's execution of lingual sounds.
2. Background of the Invention
In general, speech and phonology therapists or clinicians teach clients using charts, diagrams, mirrors, written exercises, recorded sounds, and modeling of correct positioning by the clinician, to convey to the patient the proper formation and positioning of the tongue and lips to make a particular lingual sound. This is a difficult process because it is challenging for a client who has not learned correct sound productions during the normal speech development process to understand the following: (a) the proper articulators to use to produce a specific sound; (b) the proper configuration of the articulators; (c) the proper position in which each articulator must be placed and its relation to the other articulators and to other oral structures; (d) the proper sequence of events that must occur; and (e) the proper timing in which to execute each of the aforementioned movements. To compound this process, many individuals demonstrate neurological involvement which impacts their ability to synchronize the movements of all of the articulators, resulting in errors in timing of which the patient is unaware. Consequently, it is difficult to change a client's wrongfully patterned productions and to create and reinforce new patterns to assist in the elimination of a speech impediment.
A first step in remediating speech impediments is awareness training through auditory modeling wherein the patient learns to perceptually differentiate between correct and incorrect lingual sound productions. The second step is to teach the correct production of the target sound through modeling, pictures, etc., while allowing time to extinguish old habits and create new habits. Throughout this process, the student's performance is measured and evaluated at three levels: the articulatory event, the acoustic event, and the perceptual or auditory event.
In evaluating and measuring the articulatory event, modern medical research, with the help of the latest imaging techniques (e.g., X-ray Cinematography, X-ray kymography, electropalatography (“EPG”), electrokymography, and labiography) have led speech pathologists to adopt new treatment techniques that examine contact points between the tongue and the teeth and the palate. Such treatment techniques encourage the patient to achieve certain contact points for certain sounds and discourage others.
For example, treatment using EPG involves the patient wearing a custom made appliance called a pseudopalate in order to view his “tongue to palate” (lingual palatal) contacts on a computer monitor. A visual display, indicates which areas of the tongue are contacting the four zone areas on the EPG palate, i.e., alveolar, postalveolar, palatal, and velar zones. Using this device, the client learns to manipulate his tongue to match a pattern of the appropriate sensors to touch when producing certain sounds. Thus, a patient would learn how to place his or her tongue in relationship to his or her palate and teeth in order to make a certain sound.
However useful EPG may be, it is difficult and financially expensive to obtain electropalatography instrumentation. Furthermore, during normal speech therapy, wherein the EPG instrumentation is not available, it would be helpful to have an alternative mechanism to demonstrate proper positioning of the articulators relative to each other, and in relation to the other oral structures, based on a particular patient's EPG data.
Rather than utilizing expensive and cumbersome EPG machinery, it would be extremely useful to have a tool that can demonstrate to the client the proper positioning and configuration of the articulators relative to other oral structures; that is, for example, to demonstrate the proper positioning of the tongue or lips relative to each other and to the teeth and upper and lower palate. The use of such a tool would improve a user's awareness of the mechanisms responsible for producing lingual sounds. Increased awareness would result in a greater understanding of the steps essential to learning and producing the target lingual sound.
Thus, there exists a need in the art for the development of an inexpensive tool which may be used to clearly demonstrate: (1) all articulators needed to produce each sound; (2) sufficient teeth and other oral structures to enhance a patient's understanding of the relative positioning of the articulators during each sound production; (3) articulators, i.e., a pair of lips and a tongue, which can be manipulated to show their correct positioning in relation to each other and in relation to other oral structures, i.e., teeth, an upper palate, and a lower palate; (4) an upper palate that can be posed to mimic normal palatal vaulting and its relation to the configuration and position of the articulators; (5) a tongue that can be manipulated and posed to indicate the amount and position of tongue grooving; (6) a tongue that can be manipulated and posed to demonstrate that movement of the tongue tip/blade (front portion of the tongue) can be separated from movement of the tongue dorsum (back portion of the tongue), whereby both areas can move independently of each other (the dorsum can be raised while the tip/blade is lowered); (7) a tongue that can be manipulated and posed along its lateral margins to indicate areas where air should or should not escape; (8) a tongue that can be extended or retracted within the mouth; (9) the amount of contact between the tongue, teeth, and palate; and (10) the location of the contact of the tongue to the teeth and the palate.